1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of IVR system call processing and more particularly to call interruption handling in an IVR system.
2. Description of the Related Art
IVR systems have revolutionized industrial call processing and find wide application across multiple industries—particularly with respect to industrial customer service. An IVR system is an automated call processing system providing self-service interactions with callers through a telephone call. The most basic IVR system provides a sequence of prompts that vary according to caller selections—generally provided in the form of dial tones or spoken choices. More advanced IVR systems handle natural language input from callers in order to properly service caller requests. Even more advanced IVR systems provide an escalation path in which callers ultimately can be routed to a human operator when requested by the caller, or when detected as necessary, but otherwise provide automated responses in the absence of human intervention.
IVR systems usually include a computing system with a call processing gateway between the computing logic of the IVR system and the public switched telephone network (PSTN). In this regard, the call processing gateway generally includes hardware configured for coupling to the PSTN and also to a data communications pathway, either through direct bus connection of the computing system, or a packet switched network connection to a remote server. Some IVR systems include pre-recorded audible responses triggered for playback in response to user input while other IVR systems process scripts such as Voice Extensible Markup Language (VXML) compliant scripts and dynamically generate audible responses—typically by way of a text-to-speech (TTS) engine or through a combination of TTS and pre-recorded audio. Even more advanced IVR systems process spoken user input by way of a speech recognition engine in order to properly select a response to a user inquiry.
The ability of an IVR to system to successfully process a caller request largely depends upon the maintenance of a telephonic connection between the caller and the IVR system. Under conventional circumstances, so long as the telephonic link between caller and IVR system is maintained, the ability of the IVR system to service a caller request depends only upon the robust nature of the responses able to be provided in response to user input as defined by the call flow of the IVR system. However, when a telephone call between caller and IVR system drops or otherwise becomes interrupted, the IVR system cannot provide the requisite responses to caller input, obviously. Ordinarily, in such a circumstance, the IVR system upon detecting a drop of the telephonic connection merely terminates the call response session and the caller must re-engage the IVR system from the beginning over a new telephonic connection.
In an age of cellular and Internet protocol (IP) telephony and geographically remote customer service call centers, calling an IVR system over a less then perfectly reliable telephonic connection is common. Accordingly, dropped phone calls during an IVR system session increasingly have become commonplace. Even still, the experience of a dropped telephone call during an IVR system session can be frustrating to the caller who must begin anew the interactions with the IVR system and can defeat the intent of the IVR system in easing customer service for callers.